Ollie. Asexual/Panromantic/Genderqueer. They/Them/Their or Xe/Xem/Xyr. Writer, crafter, baseball fan, TTRPG enthusiast. Whatever you actually followed me for, I should probably apologize. Unless you followed me because of one of my fanfics, in which case I should DEFINITELY apologize.
Thanks @leatafandom for the tag! Get to know me, and then tag 10 followers you'd like to get to know better!
Last song: Liverpool Judies (Live) - The Corries
Currently watching: Trying to get through all of Game Changer on Dropout, keep not having time
Currently reading: Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle (yes, still)
Current obsession: The Magnus Archives for the 312th straight week
Currently working on: Ficwise, I'm mostly working on patience, with occasional side-dabbling into an AU that may or may not be a oneshot where Jon goes to Martin after Leitner's murder; craftwise, desperately trying to finish a secret project for Realms of Peril & Glory's fifth anniversary this month
Currently wearing: A green and white polo shirt I inherited from an old family friend, the jeans I hemmed with quilting fabric, belt, ace spinner ring (with eyes all over it)
Last thing I looked up: The name of Linnett Ridgeway's English trustee in Death on the Nile (long story)
Favorite flower: Either the American Beauty rose (iykyk) or lilacs (iykyk)
Tagged by @drowninginredink to shuffle the On Repeat/Replay Mix Playlist and post the first 10 songs that play, then tag 10 people (But i prolly wont get to ten)
BUTCHER VANITY
Cutie Mew Mew Magic
Convergence
100 Epitaphs
Occam's Razor
Strike 3
Stardust Pharmacy (FEM&M Remix)
Parties Are For Losers
Punch It, Punk
Comfort Zone
So. 7/10 are Parties Are For Losers. Which. Has been the last like 2 months for me. And then like, the two other trans songs that were new around that time frame, and Butcher Vanity. I am one of the trans women of all time.
um @thedaygoesupinflames (mostly cus you gotta look at how lucky i was with the pafl) @pizzaronipasta @toytulini @dragon-mantis @staledirt-87 @avocets-portrait
Maybe cheating a little, but...well, Bandcamp doesn't really do an "on repeat" thing like some sites do, but I've been listening to nothing but this playlist on repeat for the last, like...month, so let's shuffle that and see what happens!
Soar - Kadence
Boreas - The Oh Hellos
Sirens - The Mechanisms
Here Is the Chorus - Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
Dance in a Circle - Alexander James Adams
Ragnarok II: The Calling - The Mechanisms
Down Under the Mountain - Gravesend Weavers
Cup of Tea - Kadence
Stay Right Here - Kadence
Love, Appalachia - Jacob Danielsen-Moore
(Hilarious to me that this includes three out of the four Kadence songs on my playlist, but - crucially - NOT the one that is my absolute favorite from this album. Although they're all amazing.)
Tagging (no pressure) @fridayyy-13th, @jaz--hands, @blasphemous-lies-and-deceit, @leatafandom, and anyone else who wants to play!
patience my brother (and patience my friend): a TMA fanfic
Read from the beginning on Tumblr || Also on AO3 and my website
Chapter 17: A Flip of the Coin
The sun was shining its arse off.
That was a good thing, Melanie reflected; it meant they didn’t have to walk in the rain. She was also hoping it boded well. It wasn’t necessarily that sunshine automatically meant things would turn out right—some of the worst days in her life had been perfectly nice weather—but it did feel like rainy days portended bad news. And considering today was the day that her entire future hinged on, the more omens were on her side—or at least not totally against her—the better.
“Stop worrying,” Jon said, through a mouthful of foam. He spat the toothpaste into the washbasin and added, “You’re going to be fine.”
Melanie scoffed as she swiped the lipstick over her bottom lip. “Easy for you to say. You’ve read the whole library.” She set the tube on Jon’s half of the counter and reached for the eyeliner.
Jon snatched the tube up and leaned closer to the mirror. “First of all, I have not. Second of all, that just means I have more information to get muddled up, and third of all, at least you could have that ruler Mrs McDowell gave you to help you fix the lines in place. I would have failed the maths exam completely if they’d taped my hand to the desk. As it is, I might scrape together a few points for basic addition.”
“You’re not that bad at maths.”
“And you’re not that bad at English. Quit borrowing trouble. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Melanie groaned. “Did you have to say that?”
It had been, by most metrics, a blissful summer, the second they hadn’t had to go to Bournemouth. Instead they had gone to Sheffield—initially just for a week, but their dad’s cousin Linda had rung up while they were visiting with the news that she’d somehow managed to get tickets to not only some of the first week’s events of the Olympics but the opening ceremony itself, and when all of her aunts had declined for one reason or another (Melanie suspected at least some of it was put on) had asked and obtained permission to take them along. It had been their first time flying, their first time out of the country, and their first time discovering just how much fun Cousin Linda was when her aunts weren’t around. She’d dragged them—well, not really dragged, both Jon and Melanie had been eager to go—to a few different museums in between games, and even taken them to the dig she was working on, and Uncle Edmond had taken all of them to what he swore was the best taverna in all of Greece. Melanie had no reason to doubt him. They’d hated having to leave, and felt bad about Uncle Edmund not being able to stay longer, but he’d assured them that he had to get back to work as well, since he wouldn’t be retiring until the end of the year.
They’d been back for about a week and a half, and they’d spent most of it chasing one another around town on their bicycles, fencing in the park using sticks and dubious techniques, and arguing over things like if trees could dream and whether cheese tasted yellow. It had been, in Melanie’s opinion, a wonderful excuse to just shut her brain off and not think, about anything at all, let alone anything serious. But today was the day, and not thinking was no longer an option.
At least there wasn’t any kind of dress code. Some people, she knew, would dress up for this, others…wouldn’t. Melanie had opted for walking the line between comfort and confidence and donned a pair of low waisted jeans she’d embroidered with Auntie Liz’s help, a bright pink midriff shirt with a glittery heart in the middle, and the oversized denim jacket their dad promised she’d grow into that she’d begun adding patches to, and was currently trying, with limited success, to get the hang of winging her eyeliner. Jon, beside her, wore the shirt he’d got in Athens, a pair of artfully ripped jeans, and his jacket to match hers, except that hers was a light stone and his was a dark charcoal. The lipstick suited his skin tone better than it did Melanie’s. Both of them had gelled their hair into spikes, and that particular hairstyle…well, it didn’t really suit either of them, honestly, but it at least looked a little better on Melanie.
“I think I might cut my hair shorter before school starts,” she said distractedly, trying to get the left eye to match the right. “Assuming I’m going.”
“Of course you’re going. You’re not going to fail.” Jon tilted his chin briefly to examine in the mirror, then turned to face her fully with a mischievous smirk. “Anyway, I’ll be going, and where—”
“Yeah, yeah. Shut up,” Melanie grumbled, without heat.
They finished their morning ablutions—that had been one of the vocabulary words on their exams, and Melanie had liked it a lot—laced up their shoes, and headed to the living room. Cosy was prowling around restlessly, going back and forth between the living room and the door to the dining room; Paddiwack, who was, like his namesake, a heartthrob and a bit of a snob and had never been one to indulge in kittenish playing, was nevertheless engaged in a wrestling match with Skimbleshanks behind the partial wall separating the living room and the utility closet. Their dad was turning up the sofa cushions.
“Dad?” Melanie said, frowning slightly.
Their dad paused, looking up. “Oh—hello, Little Moth.” His glasses, which had somehow been knocked askew upwards, dropped down and settled into place on his nose. “Have you seen my car keys? I swear I left them by the door.”
“No, not since last night.” Their dad had taken them out to practice their driving for a bit, but he always hung the keys on the rack by the door. Melanie could see at a glance they weren’t there, though. “Here, let me help you look.”
Jon glanced at Cosy with a slight frown. “I’ll help in a minute…Dad, did you feed the cats this morning?”
“Yes. That is, I thought I had. I didn’t check their water bowl, though.”
“Right, let me do that and then I’ll help.” Jon disappeared into the kitchen.
Melanie dropped to her knees, on the grounds that her jeans could stand it more than the knees of their dad’s suit trousers, and peered under the sideboard. It wasn’t impossible for Skimbleshanks, in a fit of mischief, to have jumped up on the top and batted the keys off the hook—it would be difficult, certainly, because their mum had definitely purchased a set of hooks with a deep curve to deter such mischief, but not impossible—and there was enough of a gap behind it that it might have fallen under. Her efforts were in vain, however. Nor were the keys under the sofa, the bookshelf, or the piano.
She got up and brushed off her knees. “Maybe Skimbles ran off with them?”
Their dad frowned. “Why should he have done that?”
“They’re shiny.” It was a weak argument and Melanie knew it, but it was the only thing she could come up with in the moment. “Who knows what goes on in that cat’s mind?”
“I suppose,” their dad said slowly. He turned around at the sound of footsteps. “Was it water Cosy was wanting?”
“The water bowl was fine,” Jon said. He stood in the doorway with two oranges held in one hand and something in the other, which flashed and gave a soft clink as it swung free when he held it up. It was the ring of keys.
“Oh, there they are!” Their dad laughed, holding out his hand. Jon tossed them with an easy underhand throw, and their dad caught it fairly easily. “I must have set them on the kitchen counter when I fed the cats. Thank you, Little Flame.” He flicked through the keys and took hold of the one for the car. “So, what adventure are you two off on today?”
Jon tossed one of the oranges, less gently, at Melanie. She caught it with one hand and a defiant smirk, which he returned. “Heading off to the school…you want to take the train or bike?”
"Train,” Melanie said firmly. It was easier for them to talk that way, and would make it easier to bring…things…home with them.
A look of confusion crossed their dad’s face. “Surely it can’t be time for you to go back to school yet. And on a Thursday?”
“Not quite yet.” Jon raised himself up on his toes—he hadn’t hit his final growth spurt yet—just enough to press a quick kiss to their dad’s cheek. “It’s Results Day.”
Melanie raised on her own toes—she and Jon had somehow managed to match each other inch for inch the entire time they’d been growing up—and pressed a kiss to his other cheek. “Wish us luck.”
“Luck?” Their dad scoffed and ruffled their hair affectionately. Melanie tried not to wince at the press of the keys into her scalp. “My children don’t need luck. Get on with you.”
Out of habit, both of them jumped up slightly to swat the Thorn Valley sign and set it swinging before skipping off down the path. Their dad waved to them from where he was getting in the car; they waved back, then headed off. As they rounded the corner, Melanie elbowed Jon. “How cold was the kitchen? Felt like he was pressing a block of ice on my head.”
“Not very. The keys were in the fridge.” Jon shrugged at Melanie’s incredulous look. “He must have dropped them when he was making himself breakfast.”
“I guess.” Something niggled unsettlingly in the back of Melanie’s mind, but it was quickly eclipsed by worries about her marks as she slid a thumbnail into the peel of the orange.
There were a fair number of other teenagers on the train, unsurprising given the circumstances, and it took them a bit to find seats. When they did settle down, Jon said, “Can you imagine what this would be like if I had gone to Eton?”
“I wouldn’t have got through secondary school, that’s for certain,” Melanie said. “Even if I’d gone to Harrogate. And we’d still be in both places.” She pulled a face. “I know I should want to go…”
“Do you?”
“No. If I’m going anywhere, I’m going to Stockport with you, like we talked about. And anyway, do I really have the right?”
“As much as I do to go to Eton,” Jon pointed out. Melanie grunted. “Have you decided what you might want to study?”
Melanie kicked at the seat idly. “I had a look at that catalog Mr Crewe gave us, and…I’ve been thinking. I know we talked about, like, getting a job at some ivory tower think tank to study the paranormal—”
“Only because we couldn’t think of anything else.”
“Yeah, but I did. You know that show that pops up every Halloween, the one where they go to different places and look into ghost stories and urban ledges and that sort of thing?” Melanie grinned at the look on Jon’s face as the same thought that had occurred to her dawned on him. “We could do that, right? Get a crew together, seek out some ghosts…and, you know, if one of us has a degree in things that go bump in the night, maybe we can still do research into…things…and figure out how to stop them. But we need money to do that. So I thought I’d look into a degree in Media and learn how to do it properly.”
Jon kissed her cheek. “You’re brilliant.”
Marple wasn’t far away—just a couple stops down the line—and every teenager still remaining on the train swarmed off when it stopped. None of the adults, few as they were, seemed to mind; in fact, one gentleman even lowered his newspaper to wish them luck as they departed. Jon craned his neck as they joined the throng stepping out of the station, then waved. “Sam! Hi, Sam, how are you feeling?”
Melanie turned with a smile. She liked Sam—not like that, but at least to talk to. He was a bit of an outcast like they were, and for many of the same reasons, more of a loner, with a dry sense of humor that appealed to her, and he was the only person who could consistently keep up with Jon academically. He was also possibly the most obsessively neurotic, perfectionist person in the entirety of Greater Manchester’s Year Eleven by dint of being desperate to make his parents proud, so he was probably an absolute mess.
Sure enough, he looked not only like he was about to be sick, but like he had probably been sick several times in the bushes. “Like crap. Hi, Jon. Hi, Melanie.”
Melanie fished a tin of mints out of the recesses of her jacket and offered them to Sam; he took two. “You’re going to be fine.”
“But what if I’m not?” Sam fretted. “What if I got so nervous during exams that I failed them all? My parents will never forgive me.”
“And if the sky falls down, we’ll all catch larks,” Melanie said lightly, like she hadn’t been worrying about her exams just as much. “Don’t worry so much, Sam. Sài wēng shī mǎ.”
“Easy for you to say,” Sam said, but his lips did at least quirk upwards in a slight smile.
“Only because she’s practiced it most of her life,” Jon said, drawing a laugh out of both of them. “Look. Let’s make a bet of it. Five pounds says you got more A-starred than I did.”
Sam pursed his lips. “And if we get the same number?”
“Then I pay you both,” Melanie interjected. “We all know I’ll be lucky to get one.”
“Oh, that’s not a safe bet at all. Five pounds you got at least three.” Sam nudged her lightly. “Fine. You’re both on. Let’s go before I lose my nerve.”
“Right. Morituri te salutamus.”
Jon threw his arm around Melanie’s shoulder and hooked the other through Sam’s. “Sounds like you probably did pretty well on your Latin paper.”
They weren’t the only ones going together. There were pairs—siblings and romantic—clusters of friends, and a group of the boys in the rugby club that could only be described as a “pack” who were hyping each other up. But there were also a few solos, people walking towards the schools while wringing their hands or clutching good luck talismans or pretending they didn’t care. Melanie snagged Sophie as they passed her, since she looked like she was about to bolt and refuse to even go, and Cedric attached himself to their group of his own accord while pretending it was just a coincidence. Jon waved to Mason as they passed him, but he didn’t really notice, too focused on counting the beads of his rosary as he murmured a prayer to whatever saint he thought might help him out.
“It’s good to know I’m not the only one nervous,” Sam admitted, looking at Mason over his shoulder as they passed. “I wish I thought there was something out there listening that could help.”
Jon and Melanie exchanged glances, and she knew he was thinking the same thing as her: there was plenty out there, and some of it was likely listening, but it wasn’t likely to be helpful.
They weren’t the first ones to make it to the school, but neither would they be the last. There were a few clumps of students in the bus ports and on the road ringing the building, some yelling with excitement over results and others clearly hyping themselves up to go up the stairs. Melanie had to practically drag Sophie through the double doors, where they threaded through yet more students excitedly yelling about results before they reached the gymnasium, where they had been told to report. There were tables lining the room, each with a letter or set of letters over them. Jon glanced up at them, then turned to the others. “Guess they split them by last name.”
Sam nodded, looking a little sick. “Meet out front to take a look?”
“See you in a few.” Melanie knocked her fist against Sam’s, then Cedric’s, then gave Sophie a quick hug before following Jon over to the table labeled S.
Unsurprisingly, there was a longer line, but Melanie finally got to the front and was able to show her ID to the teacher, who marked her name off on the list and handed her an envelope. Melanie smiled her thanks, waited for Jon to get his, and headed back out front.
Sam and Sophie were already there, both of them looking sick. Melanie joined them. “Do we wait for Cedric or just go ahead?”
“We promised,” Jon reminded her. Melanie rolled her eyes. “He was almost to the front when we were coming out, it shouldn’t be too much—”
“It’s so not fair that there are more last names starting with M than there are anyone else. I mean, come on, shouldn’t there at least be a good number of S names?” Cedric complained, stomping towards them.
“—longer,” Jon finished. Melanie giggled. “Right. Count of three?”
“No, let’s take turns,” Cedric said. “That way we can celebrate together. And you two can go last.” He ripped open his envelope before the others could say anything and pulled out his results, then scanned the sheaf of papers quickly. “Not bad, at least for me. All Bs. Go on, Melanie, you next.”
“Why me?” Melanie grumbled, even as she tore open the envelope.
“Because you’re more likely to have grades closer to mine.”
Jon glared at Cedric for that. Melanie ignored him in favor of pulling out her results and scanning them. “Hey, pretty good! Three As and—holy shit.”
“What?” Cedric demanded.
Instead of answering, Melanie tucked the paper under her arm to secure it, fished out her wallet, and extracted a five pound note she’d meant for a cup of tea or something after getting the results. She handed it to Sam. “You win. Three A-starred.”
“I knew you could do it.” Sam grinned at her. Jon gave her an excited hug, and she caught her papers before hugging him back.
Sophie opened her own papers and studied them. “Hey, me, too! Well, almost. Three A-starred and four As.”
“Does she get five pounds?”
“Shut up, Cedric.” Melanie looked from Jon to Sam and back. “Well? Go on, you two. Let’s see who wins your bet.”
They both tore the envelopes open at the same time, but Sam got his papers out first and scanned them. He gave a shaky exhale of relief. “Seven A-starred!”
Jon looked at his and let out a crow of delight. “Nine!”
Melanie tackled him in a tight hug as Sam, grinning even wider somehow, handed Jon the note she had just given him before joining the hug. Cedric and Sophie jumped in, too—they weren’t close like that, but this was a special occasion and emotions were running high. There was a click and a flash as someone, probably one of the local reporters, took a picture of them all celebrating, and Melanie couldn’t help but think it was a perfect start to a shining new future.
to be clear, i am referring to any type of sewing which you can do confidently enough to perform basic repair or construction of a garment. if you can comfortably sew a patch onto a pair of pants, or put together a simple item using fabric and thread, that is enough for this poll. i'm curious how many people have basic needle skills, as someone who was never taught but whose life has been completely changed by learning!
There was a trend in the 40s and 50s (not sure if it predates that or if there are places that still do it) where you could get your child’s baby shoes cast in bronze or dipped in bronze and use them as keepsakes or have them mounted as bookends. Better than the resin slop of the modern day in my opinion. My great grandma had my grandpa’s baby shoes made into bookends ends because she loved him very much and he was her only child and it is honestly really cute. My mom got her dad’s baby shoe bookends when she moved out and they were in my living room my entire childhood, she had explained how they were grandpa’s shoes covered in bronze and I thought that was cool.
Then I went to an art museum and saw bronze busts of people and my tiny child brain thought the person’s dismembered head and shoulders were in there…
I think that endlessly circulating post that claims to present an actual performance of John Stump’s “Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz” but is in fact an arrangement of “U N Owen Was Her?”, Flandre Scarlet’s boss fight theme from the 2002 video game Touhou: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil has to be the iconic example of Tumblr misinformation – not because of the blatantly misidentified music, but because every so often somebody reblogs it with a long-winded explanation that no, that’s not really John Stump’s “Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz”, it’s an arrangement of “U N Owen Was Her?”, and here’s the real “Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz”, followed by a link to a different arrangement of “U N Owen Was Her?”.
(For those popping up in the notes to explain that this particular bit of misinformation doesn’t originate on Tumblr, y’all, I never said it did. Almost none of the misinformation that’s popularly circulated on Tumblr actually originates here. I’m specifically talking about the pattern of some ostensibly helpful reblogger providing an essentially complete and correct explanation of what’s wrong with the original post and why, then proceeding to put forth a “corrected” version that’s somehow even wronger.)
Still, it’s pretty funny that this is so prevalent that most of the initial Google results have mislabeled U.N. Owen arrangements. I found a link in a comment section that lead to this, but I have no idea whether even that’s true. I’m inclined to believe it might be since it’s the only arrangement I found that isn’t a U.N. Owen piece, but honestly I don’t know anymore.
That’s a reasonable approximation of what the Death Waltz might sound like, if it were playable. Which it isn’t – to be clear, “Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz” is an esoteric joke about certain conventions of musical notation that only incidentally resembles actual music. John Stump was an engraver specialising in sheet music, and he composed the Dealth Waltz as a parody of some of the odder examples of his craft that he’d encountered over the years.
I’m told that it’s hilarious, provided you have the right sort of musical background. You can judge for yourself!
(The page has been divided into parts for easier mobile viewing. You can find it all in one piece with a quick Google search, if so inlined.)
There’s actually no rests written in that measure, so it’s unclear if that’s actually silence or just… nothing. (But repeated. Very important. The nothing must happen exactly twice.)
No, there aren’t. That’s another, related piece of misinformation; the page of sheet music that’s popularly circulated as the second part of “Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz” – often in the context of the aforementioned “U N Owen Was Her?” arrangements – is actually taken from a completely different John Stump piece called “String Quartet No. 556(b) for Strings In A Minor (Motoring Accident)“.
(I encourage you to Google that one, too. It’s striking in its own way, if somewhat less nakedly chaotic than the Death Waltz.)
(7/30/26) The Red Cross just declared the second US blood crisis in its history.
Summer sees both a drop off in donations and, at least for our trauma center, a spike in traumas. Trauma centers across the US are in danger of running out of blood for our trauma patients TODAY, which is very scary but, unlike much of the other scary national news coming across our screens these days, is something you can help fix immediately and directly.
We need ASAP donations of blood, for people to spread the word, and for manager types to help facilitate others' donations. All blood types are needed, but universal donor blood (type O) is especially dire.
Many things that previously made people ineligible have been rolled back. If you previously thought you were ineligible, please consider checking current guidelines!
While O- is the most dire need as it can be safely given to anyone in an emergency, all types are needed! Our emergent release blood is being pulled for patients who have a high chance of death if they don't get blood within the hour. Once they're stabilized, they can have their type confirmed and get blood of a specific, matching type released to them so that O- can go to the patients who need it most.
Canada is also in a blood shortage, not just the US. Even if you're not in the USA or Canada, maybe check locally, especially if it's summer where you are.
patience my brother (and patience my friend): a TMA fanfic
Read from the beginning on Tumblr || Also on AO3 and my website
Chapter 16: Feeble Engines of Despotism
As a tourist town, a seaside resort, and a university town rolled into one, Bournemouth had a thriving culture. There were museums, historic buildings, and parks. The Bournemouth Pier, and the shorter but more architecturally significant Boscombe Pier, still provided fun activities and entertainment; there were multiple open air concert venues, theaters, and night clubs. There were festivals that ran every year and drew visitors from all over England, a nationally renowned orchestra, and a football club that played fierce and well attended matches. There was even a hot air balloon known as the “Bournemouth Eye” tethered in one of the gardens and allowing people, twenty-eight at a time, to rise up above the ground and see the town from above.
Melanie was about as aware of all of that as someone on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean who had only read about it in books would have been.
She sat on the window seat, knees tucked under her chin, and stared vacantly out of it. Not that there was much to see, really. The sun wasn’t even up yet, although it was trying to be, and the sky had been completely clouded over as long as she’d been sitting there. As she watched, a heavy mist rolled up to obscure the view from the window.
She sighed heavily. Another day trapped indoors.
Honestly, it was worse than when they were kids (she thought, as if they were so very grown up at the ripe old age of fourteen). Being trapped indoors when they were small had at least lent itself to games of hide and seek, even if they’d quickly got bored of not having new and innovative places to hide. But now they were too mature for games like that, and besides, Mrs Sims was even more convinced they were doing sinful and unholy things when left alone than she had when they had first started coming to visit. If she believed for one minute they were running around the house, crawling into closets and under furniture still covered in dust sheets and giggling as they pounced at each other, she’d be dragging them both to the priest screaming for an exorcism, at best.
Melanie bit back a groan as the thought chased another out of hiding. It was Sunday. Which meant that even if it did start raining too hard for Mrs Sims to be willing to venture out (doubtful, it was only ten minutes’ walk and she was quite likely to call one of the women from whatever committee she was on this year if she felt it to be too much for her), they would be expected to sit quietly in the living room and watch whatever service being broadcast on the telly she was able to find, or failing that a radio broadcast. And once it was over, they wouldn’t be allowed to do much anyway. No work—or play—on Sundays, only quiet reading. At least she’d given up trying to force them to read the Bible after Jon had asked her too many questions about Song of Solomon.
A creak from behind her almost drew her attention, but she made herself keep staring out the window, just in case the old bat had somehow climbed the stairs and was coming in to check on them, which was a distinct possibility. A moment later, however, she saw—just—Jon’s reflection in the window as he seated himself opposite her, tapping her foot with his as he drew them up to mimic her pose.
“Nightmares?” he asked by way of greeting.
“How’d you guess?” Melanie turned to look at Jon and noted the way his hair stood on end. “Never mind. You, too?”
“Just the ocean this time, anyway.” Jon sighed. “I wish there was a way to make them stop for good. You know, without a lobotomy.”
Melanie turned that word over for a moment. “Okay…the tomy at the end probably means taking something out, like hysterectomy or appendectomy. So…what, taking out dreams? Memories?”
“Something like that, I guess. It’s actually taking out part of the brain.” Jon smiled grimly as Melanie recoiled. “Yeah, that was my reaction too. It was most common in the United States, less common but still popular in England, and even less common in the rest of Europe. The Soviet Union banned it outright as being too inhumane.”
“And that gave nobody a clue that maybe it was a bit much?”
“Apparently not. It was a recommended treatment for mental illness, especially in women.” Jon picked at his sleep pants briefly. “And for homosexuals.”
Melanie sighed. “Don’t give That Damn Woman any ideas.”
Jon actually snickered. “Do you remember where we picked up on that? I still can’t. She’s just always been…well, That Damn Woman.”
Melanie cracked a grin. “Must’ve been one of our parents. Since Dad doesn’t swear and Mum always made a point of making us leave the room before she chewed anybody out, I’m guessing it was Mama.”
“You don’t know that Mum didn’t start making us leave the room before exploding because we started calling Her that. We’ll have to ask Dad.”
“If we remember by the time we get home.” Melanie let her head fall back against the wall with a light thump and a bounce. “Assuming we get to go home.”
Jon scoffed. “She can’t actually keep us here forever. We do have to go back to school at some point. Anyway, the papers say we only have to stay three weeks, so…two more?”
“You keep acting like she’s going to be remotely reasonable about this. You know half her sewing circle or…charity group or whatever they are thinks we’re being raised by wolves.”
“I should leave the earring in and really make her mad,” Jon mumbled, tugging at his left ear. The tiny jeweled stud winked, picking up the slightest bit of light and flashing it back like a star. “Except I’m not altogether convinced she wouldn’t use it as an excuse to go back to court.”
Melanie’s heart lurched. “And do what?”
Jon shrugged. “Say Dad’s not taking proper care of me. Say the house isn’t good for me with only one parent, because Dad works all the time whereas she stays home and can watch me properly. Say the custody arrangement was based on Mum and Dad being married. And, honestly, fuck Dad’s life up even more than it already is.”
Since Jon didn’t normally swear when they were in Bournemouth out of fear of what Mrs Sims would do—even saying That Damn Woman was a step beyond what he usually allowed himself—the force of the fuck knocked Melanie back on her metaphorical heels. “You don’t think she’d…win, do you?”
“Melanie, of course not.” Jon gave her the same exasperated look he’d given her a year ago when telling her he wasn’t going to Eton. “It’s not a guardianship anymore, remember? Mum and Dad adopted me good and proper. There’s nothing to contest. Their names are on my birth certificate, and I’m—”
He stopped abruptly. A vacant look came over his eyes, and they strayed towards the window. It was still foggy—or maybe hazy—and there wasn’t anything to see out there, but nevertheless he seemed to be looking at something. Or maybe he’d heard something. Or maybe, Melanie thought, he was just focusing on something other than her so he didn’t disconcert her, because his lips were moving ever so slightly as he stared, like he was running calculations on something. She considered what he’d said, trying to figure out what sudden revelation had struck him in the middle of the sentence. She didn’t think it was bad, necessarily, because he didn’t look upset or frightened or angry. Pursing her lips, she reeled the conversation back, one ponderous sentence at a time. Dad, Jon’s newly pierced ear, going back to court, the papers—the papers.
“The order from the court said Jonathan Sims,” she said triumphantly, slapping one hand against the knee. “That’s not your name anymore.”
“No.” Jon turned back to Melanie, his eyes gleaming almost as bright as the earring behind his glasses. “It’s Jonathan Sims-King. Which means we’ve been coming here for eight years when we don’t even have to. God, if we’d known that, if we’d thought about it when we were kids, maybe we wouldn’t have…”
“Don’t,” Melanie said swiftly. Jon wasn’t wrong, necessarily—maybe they could have spared a lot of trauma if they hadn’t come to Bournemouth—but neither of them needed to be blaming themselves for that, not now. And they didn’t need to think about what had happened to Andrew and get into an argument over whether it was their fault. “We were kids, and even if we had thought about it…you know Dad would have insisted we come anyway. Remember what he used to say before we got on the train? ‘Give her a chance, Little Flame. She’s family.’” She imitated their dad’s voice as best she could.
Jon snorted. “She’s not family. She’s blood. There’s a difference. You’re family, you and Dad. Auntie Jean and Auntie Rose and everyone up in Sheffield, they’re family. And Mum and Mama and Papa, and the cats…and Lucy.” He bit his lip. “Can you imagine what That Damn Woman would have done to her if she’d lived?”
Melanie shuddered. “She’d have tried to get custody of her. Or you, and leave Lucy with us. Or—”
“Or both of us,” Jon completed, “and the judge might have looked at things differently if there were three of us and two of us were going to be sent to live with her. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter.” He was quiet for a moment. “You realize she’d be turning twelve this year?”
“I think about it a lot,” Melanie confessed. “What she would have been like. You remember those books I said I could read on my own, about the schoolteacher in Canada?”
“Yeah?”
“In one of them, she gets married and has a baby. Only something goes wrong, and the baby is too weak to live more than a day, just like Lucy.” Melanie folded her legs beneath herself and leaned forward over them. “Anyway, she’s crying to one of the other characters later and says something about how she’s afraid she won’t recognize her, and he says something like ‘I reckon the Almighty will manage better than that.’ And then towards the end of the book she has another baby, and her mum—well, not her mum really, but the woman who raised her—says the baby will take Joyce’s place, and she says no, he has is own place, and says she can picture in her mind what Joy would be like if she’d lived.” She took a quick breath, aware she was rambling but also aware that Jon never minded. “It’s like that with Lucy sometimes. I don’t remember what she looked like—I don’t know if we even got to see her—but I picture her sometimes, tagging along after us or running ahead or just waiting for us to come home. It always feels like she’s there on her birthday. You know?”
“I know,” Jon said quietly. “Mama and Papa and Mum always seem like they’ll stay the way they were—but Lucy’s growing with us, in a way. I wish she’d had the chance, but I’m glad she’s spared this.” He scrubbed his eyes briefly with his arm, then spoke more seriously. “Anyway. Not the point.”
“No,” Melanie agreed. “The point is that we don’t have to come back any more after this. We can tell Dad when we go home that we’re done. I reckon he’d have let us stop in a couple years anyway, but we only have to stick it out a couple more weeks, right?”
Jon tilted his head to one side, studying her. After a moment, he asked, “Why?”
Melanie blinked. “Why would Dad have let us stop?”
“Why do we have to stick it out a couple more weeks?”
“Be…cause that’s when we’re supposed to go back?”
“Right, but why do we have to wait?” Jon asked. “We’ve got open return tickets, so they’re good for up to a month, right? We could just…leave whenever we want. Like today. Hold on, I’ve got a Railtrack in my bag.”
“Yeah, but—wait, Jon, hold on a moment.” Melanie put out a hand to catch Jon’s arm and stop him as he hopped to his feet. “She’ll never take us to the station. She’ll insist we have to stay out the full length of her time with us.”
“So we’ll walk.” Jon shrugged. “It’s only, what, a few miles to the station? We can walk that in an hour, easy. We’re about halfway between Bournemouth and Poole, we could go to either. She doesn’t have the right to keep us here against our will. She’s got no legal right to us.”
There was probably a flaw in the logic, but Melanie couldn’t think of it. Oh, wait. “Don’t we have to…have an adult to meet us at the other end?”
“We can call Dad from the station. We should probably do that anyway, so if the police call him and say we’ve run away he doesn’t panic.” Jon went over to where he’d left his bag and began rummaging through it. “And we packed light, so it shouldn’t even be that hard to carry. We’re far and away old enough to travel on our own, so—aha.”
He emerged, triumphant, with the thick booklet in hand, then came over to the window seat again and began leafing through it. “Let’s see, let’s see…here! Bournemouth. Couple options for routes. Let’s see which one gets us out of here faster.”
Melanie darted back to the nightstand where she’d left her watch and brought it back to the window seat. There was just enough light to see the dial. “It’s just going on five now. That means—probably need to catch a train after seven, just to be on the safe side, right?”
“Mm. Well, there’s a train out of Poole at nine, Bournemouth at quarter past, that goes direct to Manchester Picadilly without having to change trains. That might be our best bet. Not a lot of runs on that route, and it is Sunday, after all.” Jon made a face. “I really want to be out of here before she tries to drag us to church.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Melanie agreed. “I suppose we could leave now and just sit around the station, but what if she follows us, or sends the cops after us and has us dragged back? Unless we call Dad and he calls them and says…but that might be too much. I reckon we ought to leave with just enough time to get there, get our tickets, and leave.”
“Agreed. Let’s see what else there is.” Jon placed a finger on the page and flipped back to the index, then forward to another table. “Hmm…there’s one leaving a bit after seven, but—no, that’s a transfer, it’s the same as the one on table 158…right, so if we leave from Bournemouth at seven, we can get to London Waterloo by quarter past nine.”
“But we want to get to Manchester, right?”
“The only train direct from here to Manchester is that nine o’clock one…blast, if we go through London we’d have to go out of Euston, not Waterloo.” Jon looked up at Melanie. “So. Leave later and go direct, or leave now and change stations?”
“If we change trains, Dad can meet us in London maybe,” Melanie pointed out. “We’ll have to hurry. You’re sure you know how to get there from here?”
“Easy. Straight down the Promenade and up Bath once we hit the pier.” Jon slid a scrap of paper into the book. “Come on. Get dressed and grab your things, and for goodness’ sake, be quiet about it.”
Melanie considered arguing about why he thought she needed to be told that, but decided, on the balance, she’d rather be gone than win a pointless argument.
It didn’t take them long to get themselves put together. They had made this journey every summer since they were five years old, and they had quickly learned not to take more than they could easily carry on their own; after the first year, until last year when they’d been old enough to travel unaccompanied, they had been placed in the care of an aunt, and most of them weren’t willing to help with luggage. They also were reluctant to use the dressers or other storage areas, so they mostly lived out of their suitcases. They weren’t going to be winning any prizes for speed, hauling these, but, well, that was why they were leaving now. Melanie slung her knapsack over one shoulder and hefted her suitcase. “Ready?”
Jon adjusted the strap to his messenger bag and nodded. “Let’s go.”
The house was old, and had all the requisite problems of an old house—creaky floors, loose steps, rattling windows, the lot. After nine years, though, they knew most of its quirks, and more importantly, knew what to avoid. The owner might also be old, but she still had sharp ears and keen eyesight and she would hear them if they stepped wrong. So they treaded carefully, avoiding particularly iffy boards and joists. The fifth step from the top was loose and hollow and would flip up slightly if they stepped on it wrong; usually they jumped it altogether, but Melanie saw Jon turn his foot sideways and gingerly set it against the back of the riser. She understood. Jumping it with the suitcases could result in too loud of a thump on the next step down, and she would hear that just the same. They had to be careful.
They weren’t careful enough. Or maybe they just got unlucky. They hadn’t taken more than one step from the foot of the stairs when a sharp voice stopped them in their tracks. “And where do you think you are going?”
Melanie gasped. Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wearing a silken wrapper and a pair of house slippers, curlers in her hair and a face like thunder, was Mrs Sims.
Jon shrank back momentarily, then rallied and faced her, thrusting his chin out defiantly. “We’re going home.”
It was said with fierceness and firmness and a tone that he clearly meant to brook no argument. Unfortunately, his voice, which was beginning to settle into a low tenor, chose that moment to crack back into a boy’s treble. Melanie knew it for hormones and the snapping of an elastic cord that was still getting used to a new shape, but Mrs Sims took it for fear. For weakness.
“Are you now,” she said icily. “By whose leave?”
“We don’t need your permission,” Jon said, enunciating every word carefully. Melanie knew it was to keep his voice from squeaking again. “You don’t have any legal hold on us. You can’t keep us here against our will.”
“I am your guardian, Jonathan,” Mrs Sims said. “While you are under my roof, you are my responsibility.”
“Well, we’re leaving your roof,” Jon shot back. “Solves that problem, doesn’t it? We’re old enough to travel on your own, so you don’t even need to put out for someone to watch us.”
Mrs Sims narrowed her eyes. “I am entitled to three weeks with you every summer.”
“The court order said Jonathan Sims.” Melanie decided to add her voice to this one. Mrs Sims didn’t like her anyway. “’S not his name anymore. Hasn’t been for a long time.”
“Whatever you choose to call yourself, it does not change the name on your birth certificate,” Mrs Sims snapped.
“No, but the legal adoption from eight years ago does,” Jon said. “It’s Jonathan Sims-King. Mum and Dad adopted me, fair and square, and we all changed our names. They let us keep coming as a courtesy, but we’re done. We’re going home.”
“Talking of courtesy,” Mrs Sims said sharply, “I have allowed her to come along with you as a courtesy to your guardians. I am only required to allow you to visit.”
“Tough! Where I go, she goes.” Jon’s hand tightened around the handle of his suitcase. “And I don’t want to visit you! I never did! You’ve never, ever been even the least bit kind to us, you were horrible to Mama—even Papa didn’t want you anywhere near me! And the first thing you did when I was scared and hurt and grieving was try to take me away from the people who loved me. Why would I want anything to do with you, you—you damned old bat!”
CRACK!
The sharp, wet sound of flesh on flesh echoed through the foyer. This was no ladylike discouragement, no quick but firm tap to get attention or make a point. The flat of Mrs Sims’ hand landed hard and heavy on Jon’s cheek with the force of a metal gauntlet, in a way that was clearly in anger and not worrying about being excessive and also, Melanie remembered with sudden crystal clarity, in a way it hadn’t done since the first time they’d been left alone with her, nearly twelve years ago now, when he had dutifully replied with a yes, Grandma to an instruction and she hadn’t known that he still pronounced his G-R combinations as a D sound. Just like he had back then, Jon stood stock still, his eyes wide and fixed on her even as his head still turned slightly to one side, too shocked and frightened to cry.
To her credit, she also seemed shocked that she had done it, standing frozen before them with her hand still hovering in midair where it had landed after leaving Jon’s face. Her face was as white as her hair, but her eyes still blazed with fire, and Melanie could see the words forming behind them: Now look what you’ve made me do.
Fury, white hot and choking, rose in Melanie’s throat. She wanted to lunge forward and tackle the woman—send her to the ground and bash her head against the hardwood—wrap her hands around her neck and squeeze, her thumbs pressing into the jugular, and not slowly either—wanted to not just hurt her for the slap, but for her words, for the lost summers, for Mister Spider and the ocean, for the phone call, for the criticisms, for the baptisms. For every moment she had stolen from them and every precious memory she had tainted.
Before she could do anything, Jon reached over and suddenly grabbed her arm in a surprisingly strong grip. Without another word, he dragged her out the front door and into the fog. He didn’t even bother shutting it behind them.
They didn’t speak. Not just because Melanie’s rage was still threatening to suffocate her, not just because Jon was setting a pace down the road and then the Promenade that made talking difficult, but because there was no need for words. A few people passed them on their way down to stake out spots on the beach before it filled up, but thankfully, none of them tried to speak either. The sun struggled, but didn’t manage to burn off the haze by the time they made it to the railway station. By unspoken agreement, Melanie took Jon’s suitcase from him, handed him her open return ticket, and sat on a bench to wait while he went to the ticket booth. The platform bustled with early morning commuters likely heading for London, but none of them noticed her, let alone tried to talk to her. It gave her time to practice some of the breathing techniques Mr Dumphrey had tried to teach her.
She wasn’t very good at them.
“We have to take the same route back that we took getting here,” Jon said quietly as he settled down on the bench next to her and handed her a ticket. “It’s the way the returns work. Want to get something to eat? I’ve got the money I didn’t spend on the way down.”
“Are you okay?” Melanie asked, turning to look at him. She reached up and cupped his chin lightly, turning his face so she could examine his cheek. It had been at least an hour, but there was still—to her eyes, anyway—the faintest outline of a handprint on his skin.
“Are you?” Jon parried. He rubbed slightly at his cheek.
“She didn’t touch me.”
“If she had, I would have killed her.” Jon’s voice didn’t change in inflection or intensity; it was a quiet, simple statement of fact. “I was asking about you.”
Melanie hesitated. “I wanted to kill her.”
“I know.”
“You stopped me.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
Jon shrugged. “She’s not worth it.”
Melanie glared at him. “You just said you would have killed her if she’d touched me!”
“Yeah,” Jon agreed. “She’s not worth it. You are.”
“Well. You’re worth it, too.” Melanie hugged Jon tightly. “Do you remember when she came down for Papa’s funeral? She hit you like that because you called her Damma.”
“I—n-no.” Jon hugged her back, and she felt the hesitation in his fingers, the slight tremble, and knew he was telling the truth. “How do you remember that?”
Melanie huffed. “I didn’t, not until she hit you again. Well, I guess it’s no use asking you why we didn’t tell anyone, since you don’t remember it in the first place, but…we’re going to tell Dad about this, right?”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Jon admitted. “In the first place, it’ll add weight to our arguments for not going back, even if I don’t think she’d do it again. Not to me, anyway. But I’m also pretty sure I’m still going to have a mark by the time we get home, and I can’t lie to him about how I got it.”
“Are you going to tell him now?”
“No, not until we get home. But we should call him. Our train should be getting into Manchester Picadilly about quarter past three, and since we both know the trains don’t run to Woodley on Sundays he’ll have to pick us up. And then we really ought to eat something. There’s a tea shop over there.”
“I know. It’s the one we always wanted to stop at when we were little and she said was a waste of money.” Melanie grabbed Jon’s hand and squeezed it quickly, one two three—he returned the gesture—then stood resolutely. “I’ll go. You wait here. Be back in a jiffy.”
They were beginning to be phased out, but Bournemouth still traded enough on its tourist image that there was a row of shiny red phone booths against the station. Melanie went over to one that was unoccupied, shut herself into it, found a couple of coins in her purse, and dropped them into the slot. She waited for the tone, then dialed the familiar digits and waited through the ringing, studying her return ticket as she did so.
“Dad?” she said when a slightly muddled voice answered on the other end. “It’s Melanie. Can you meet the 3:21 from Bournemouth this afternoon? We’re coming home.”
Absolutely wild to me how sometimes you don't even realize the way you'd been taught to perceive things as a kid was kinda fucked up, actually, until decades later.
Example:
As a kid, I constantly lived in fear of damaging shit in my parent's house. The walls. The floors (especially the floors. The wood was beautiful. Shiny. But so easy to scratch). The cabinets.
As a sixteen-year-old, I once took my car to the dealership after work and paid a very dear sum of $250 ($10/hr cashier salary) to fix a slight scratch in the paint because I knew if my father saw it there would be hell to pay. It didn't matter that I parked far out, like I'd been taught, and someone scratched it anyway. It was my fault. I failed in my duties as a steward of my vehicle.
Every time I scratched a rim on a curb while parallel parking or got a door ding or, god forbid, didn't wash and vacuum that car every weekend, it was treated like some sort of moral failing.
Last year, when my husband and I first moved into our house, he scraped the side of our car when parking in our (Very Narrow) garage. When he told me, my first instinct was to be afraid for him. Like something terrible was going to happen to him because of this mistake. I urgently reassured him that it was okay, it was an accident, I wasn't mad. Baffled, he was like, "Yeah? I know? Like, thank you for the reassurance, but I'm only a little annoyed, I'm not upset. It's just a car." And I had to take several minutes to process that. It's...just a car.
We keep the car tidy. We maintain it. But we wash it maybe 4x a year. We only vacuum it after dirty road trips or when the dog hair starts to get annoying. It has scrapes and dings and the leather seats have stains. But that's ok. Because it's just a car.
This morning, I realized that a small rock had gotten embedded in the felt foot on one of our bar stools. Neither of us had noticed. There are now scratches on our beautiful hardwood floor. My immediate response was fear accompanied by a heavy measure of paralyzing guilt. "I'm so sorry," I told my husband, "I should have noticed. I'll figure out how to fix it, I swear. I can probably sand down that section and match the stain and--"
"Whoa, hey," he said. "It was an accident. And it's fine. Floors are going to get damaged. They're floors. We live here. There was damage in places before we even bought the house, remember? It's not a big deal. It's just a floor." Right. It's just a floor. Right.
My husband's mom is visiting and this afternoon, as I was sitting in the kitchen looking at the scratches on the floor, I offhandedly asked her if my husband had ever broken or damaged anything as a kid. "Of course," she said. Household items. A TV. A wrecked car during his teen years. I asked how she punished him.
"Why would I punish him for things like that?" she said. "They were all accidents."
patience my brother (and patience my friend): a TMA fanfic
Read from the beginning on Tumblr || Also on AO3 and my website
Chapter 15: Fail With Honor
“Mail call!” Melanie sang out, bursting through the front door with a stack of envelopes clutched in her fist, high over her head. She nudged the door shut with her foot and stopped a few feet away from where Jon was straightening up from unplugging the Hoover, sorting through them. “Let’s see…bills, bills, bills. Oh, a couple letters from Auntie Jean—one for Jon and one for me, must be late birthday cards. Circular from the new pet supply shop…and whatever this is.”
She handed the lion’s share of the envelopes to their dad, who gave her a warm smile and a kiss on the cheek before settling into his armchair. Jon tucked the Hoover into the closet and accepted the cerise envelope Melanie was holding out to him. It was addressed in a fine, precise script, the dark ink faintly tinged with gold, and postmarked Sheffield, but there was a smiling face drawn in the head of the G in his surname that made him grin. That was one hundred percent Auntie Liz, and he could hear the scolding over her having touched her older sister’s precious ink, never mind the fountain pen.
He turned it over and grinned wider when he saw the red wax seal, pressed with a seal showing a stylized R in a laurel wreath and the Latin inscription Arduus ad solem. Trust Auntie Rose to remember how thoroughly Melanie had broken down when she realized they actually licked the envelopes rather than moistening them with a sponge. Carefully, he worked his finger under the flap and lifted the seal away, managing to do so without breaking it. As Melanie had surmised, it was a birthday card, one of the fussy, high class, over the top fancy ones often sent by the elderly and the pretentious. That wasn’t really Auntie Jean’s style, and he wrinkled his nose at the grandiose, old fashioned message picked out in silver on the front.
The mystery was solved when he opened the card and a second envelope, this one black and with the flap simply tucked in at the back, fell out onto his lap. He quickly read the message inside and snickered at the ornate signature—Your loving aunt, Hyacinth Buckét Jean.
Melanie burst out laughing when she saw it. Jon looked up to see that she was holding a florid pink card, far more, well, girly than Melanie preferred, never mind Auntie Jean would send. They were jokes. Obviously they were jokes. Jon shook his head fondly and busied himself with opening the actual card. The interior of the envelope was blood red, which was extremely promising. The card itself had Bela Lugosi’s face on it above the words Getting older sucks…
He was just opening the card to read the message when their dad let out a cry of delight that made him jump and Melanie drop her card. “Oh, well done, Jon!”
“What did I do?” Jon asked, bewildered. It didn’t sound sarcastic, so it certainly wasn’t about the beast in Room 19—and anyway Melanie had been at least half involved in that—and anyway nobody knew it was them or they’d have already got in trouble for it. And they hadn’t had their final exams yet, so it wasn’t as though something had been published declaring him top of the year or anything, not that he would be. He knew by now that having a lot of knowledge wasn’t a substitute for knowing what was being tested on, or testing well.
But their dad was beaming at him, holding a heavy cream colored envelope in one hand and several good quality sheets of paper in the other, and Jon saw the fancy seal on the flap. “You’ve been invited to take the exam to be a King’s Scholar, not just the regular entrance exams!”
Jon blinked. “Oh.”
He knew what that meant. Of course he did. He’d…well, not exactly forgotten about it, although the past year had been extremely hectic and kind of a lot to deal with, actually. Inasmuch as he’d thought about it at all, he had more or less assumed that his marks in English the previous year would have dragged him down and taken him out of the running. But, well, that didn’t appear to be the case, did it? Not only had his grades been good enough to keep him in line for a place, they’d been good enough to have him put down for a much more competitive spot.
“Who’s the king?” Melanie dropped onto the sofa next to him, making him bounce a little from the displaced force.
“One of the Henries, I think.” Jon frowned slightly, trying to remember what he’d read in the dauntingly thick brochure that had come three years previously. “Henry the Sixth?”
“That’s right. Founded in 1440.” Their dad’s voice took on what they’d thought of when they were small as his “courtroom voice” but had since learned was an RP accent carefully cultivated to hide his working class origins. He caught himself quickly and relapsed into his normal voice. “Originally it was a charitable scholarship. Now it’s…well, there’s no money in it anymore really, but you’ve got to be a good scholar to even stand a chance. There are only fourteen places awarded every year, you know. I’d imagine you’re guaranteed a place even if you don’t get the KS, but we’ll have to find that out.”
Melanie looked back and forth between Jon and their dad. “Um…guaranteed a place where? Is this some kind of summer camp? Are we getting out of going to visit Gr—excuse me, Mrs Sims this year?”
“Are you kidding? She’d call the cops to have me dragged down there on charges of kidnapping,” Jon muttered. He opened the card and read the message inside: …but it beats the alternative. Have a fang-tastic birthday! All of the aunts had signed it, and so had Uncle Edmund. There wasn’t another male signature, though, so either Auntie Peg was between husbands or her latest man didn’t feel like he deserved to sign it. It definitely made him wish they could go to Sheffield for the summer instead of Bournemouth.
“So where are you going to be a king’s scholar, then?” Melanie persisted.
Jon opened his mouth, but their dad beat him to it. “You remember, Melanie, we all went down to Berkshire for Jon’s interview a couple years back? This is the final step in that process. He’s made it to the final round of getting into Eton.”
“Oh. Was that why we went?” Melanie wrinkled her nose. “I thought it was just so you could show us around. I didn’t know you’d applied.”
“I didn’t,” Jon said. He managed to keep his voice calm and matter of fact.
“No, we put Jon’s name down as soon as he was born,” their dad admitted. “That doesn’t fully guarantee a spot anymore, of course, but it at least meant they were looking at him as soon as he started school. Grades, conduct, all that sort of thing.”
“And getting into a fight the first day of school didn’t knock him out of the running?” Melanie spoke flippantly, but Jon could see, behind the words, something dark and fierce smoldering in her eyes. She was, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed. “How about me? Did you put my name down?”
“Ah—no.” To his credit, their dad looked embarrassed. “Believe me, we would have in a heartbeat if we could have. But…well…” He floundered a bit.
Jon tucked the card back in the envelope and decided to save him. “Eton’s an all boys school. One of the last ones in England. They don’t even accept girls as day students.”
Melanie’s eyes darkened further. “Oh.”
“It shouldn’t be too late for you to look into Harrogate for next year,” their dad said quickly. “Where your mother—your mama—went for college. They do go from age two to age eighteen, and they don’t allow boys—well, past age eleven, anyway.” He smiled. “She’d be proud of you. They both would.”
“Might?” Melanie blurted. “You didn’t think about letting me go before now?”
Their dad blanched. From the look on his face, he hadn’t, and he realized exactly how that had to sound to Melanie—that he’d been so invested in his son’s future that he hadn’t thought about his daughter’s. “I—hand to God, Melanie, I completely forgot how old you two were. I thought I had another year before I needed to worry about it. Otherwise I’d have been preparing you both, and I would certainly have had information about Harrogate to hand.”
Melanie clenched her fists and took a deep breath. Ever since puberty had started having its way with them, they were both a lot quicker to lose their tempers than they had been when they were younger, which was saying a fair amount. But neither of them liked the feeling they got when they lost their temper with their dad, who was one of the nicest, most easygoing men in the world. They were also getting a reputation of being easy to provoke, so they were both trying to work on controlling their anger. They didn’t always succeed, but they were trying. Usually they could calm one another down, and they’d never yet been at each other’s throats, other than a playful argument or two.
“Where is Harrogate, anyway?” she asked, obviously fighting to keep her voice even.
Their dad hesitated. “North Yorkshire. It’s not that far from here—far enough that you’d need to board, of course, but you could come home weekends.”
Melanie swallowed. “What about Jon? Could Jon come home weekends from Eton? Berkshire is further away.”
“It’s possible, of course,” their dad began, then stopped.
Jon didn’t need him to finish. But it’s not encouraged. Weekend activities were a thing, and he felt, instinctively, that a King’s Scholar would be expected to participate in events over the weekend. He would come home for breaks and holidays, and that would be about it.
He decided this was the point he needed to speak up. “It’s okay, Melanie. I’m not going to Eton.”
Melanie and their dad both stared at him. Jon held his breath, waiting for the disappointment, the recriminations, the arguments. Instead, their dad’s face was the same blank, calm expression Jon had often seen in court when he was talking to a witness. Never bring your own emotions to the courtroom—one of the first things he’d taught them when they were old enough to start asking questions. “What makes you say that?”
Oh. He thought Jon was doubting himself. For a moment, Jon was tempted to let it go, to go take the exam and deliberately tank it. It wouldn’t hurt his academic future…not really…at least he didn’t think so…and it would preserve the fiction for a little while longer. But no, he decided, he needed to be honest. He needed to answer the question he had been asked—the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
“Because I don’t want to go,” he said, simply.
Melanie blinked. Their dad didn’t. “Why not?”
“I don’t…I’m not ready to go away from home yet,” Jon said. Which was true. A few weeks in the summer was one thing, and he hated almost every minute of it anyway, but he definitely didn’t want to go all the way to Berkshire for most of the year, especially if it would mean he had to come home and immediately go off to Bournemouth afterwards. He rushed on. "Maybe if the last year hadn’t been so…much…it would be different, but I-I really haven’t had time to think about it, and I’m—not prepared. And then I don’t…look like an Eton boy. I wouldn’t want to bring shame on the Old School Tie by causing trouble, and I know there would be…I’d end up getting into fights. And I would be the one getting in trouble, even if it wasn’t my fault.” He hesitated, then added, “Besides…I know how expensive it is.”
Something flickered through their dad’s eyes. “If that’s your biggest concern, you would almost certainly be eligible for scholarships.”
Jon managed a small smile. “Not much of one. Not enough to make a huge difference, especially if Melanie went to Harrogate, too. But it’s not my biggest concern, Dad. It’s on the list, sure, but…you know, if that were the only thing I was worried about was the money, I’d try and then get a summer job or something to help with the school fees.” He took a deep breath. “It’s just an awful lot of money to spend on something I don’t really want.”
For several moments, there was silence, broken only by Skimbleshanks batting at one of his toys with a jingle bell inside it—he might have been four years old, but he was still very much a kitten. Cosy appeared out of nowhere, as she so often did, and wound herself around Jon’s ankles, purring, before jumping up onto his lap and making herself comfortable. Jon stroked her, teasing up a bit of loose fur at her neck, and fought to keep looking at their dad instead of breaking eye contact. Even though he knew their dad didn’t equate eye contact with honesty, not from his children anyway, there was still a part of him that was afraid he’d be accused of lying if he didn’t.
Finally, their dad shook his head, his face softening. “I’m sorry, Little Flame. I was so enthusiastic about the idea of being able to sponsor you that I didn’t ever think to ask if you wanted to go. I should have asked you about it sooner. Frankly, I should have asked you about it when we went down for the interview. I should have realized then that your heart wasn’t in it, but I thought—or at least, I let myself think—that you were just nervous.” He slid off his chair and onto the sofa with them, then hugged Jon tightly. “We’ll send the packet back with a polite no, thank you. And when it comes time for you two to pick your colleges, we’ll all sit down and decide together.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Jon hugged their father back, more relieved than he wanted to admit.
Melanie didn’t say anything further, and the rest of the day passed as normal. That night, though, while Jon was sat up in bed reading through the introduction to the book he’d been meaning to read for a while and was finally getting to, she came back from the bathroom, jumped onto the bed next to him, and dropped her head to his shoulder.
“You’re not giving up on Eton just because Dad didn’t think to get me to Harrogate, are you?” she asked.
“Melanie, don’t be stupid.” Jon pressed his cheek to the top of Melanie’s head. “You don’t want to go to Harrogate.”
“But you do want to go to Eton?”
“No. I said so.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“I’m not.” Jon set his book down on his lap and gave Melanie the best glare he could manage, considering how close she was to him; he had to cross his eyes a bit to do it. “I really don’t want to go. It’s too far away, and I don’t want to leave Dad alone yet. He’s not ready, however much he wants to pretend he is. Not when he switched rooms with us so he never has to sleep in a room he used to share with Mum or Mama, even if he won’t say that’s why he switched.” He shrugged, despite the fact that it joggled her head. “Besides, Eton’s a boys’ school.”
Melanie snorted. “What, don’t want to miss out on girls?”
“I like boys, too,” Jon reminded her. “What I don’t want to miss is you. That’s the real reason I don’t want to go. Because you can’t. I’ve never gone anywhere without you and I don’t intend to start now.”
Melanie was quiet for a couple seconds. Finally, she huffed out a sigh. “Where you go, I go, eh?”
“That’s the deal,” Jon agreed.
“I’m glad,” Melanie confessed in a low whisper. “I’m not ready to miss you yet, either.”
Jon wrapped an arm around Melanie and hugged her; she flung her arms around his torso and snuggled closer. In her I’m not getting ready to cry and fuck you for even thinking it voice, she asked, “So what are you reading, anyway?”
“I found it in the nightstand.” Jon tilted the cover towards Melanie so she could see. “You remember Mum complaining about how the movie ruined her favorite book and the actors didn’t even look like they should? I wanted to see what that was all about.”
“Read it to me?” Melanie rested her chin on his shoulder and gave him her best puppy dog eyes. “At least start? I know we still have school in the morning.”
“Sure.” Jon leaned back against the headboard and opened the book, turned a couple pages, and began. “Chapter One. Jonathan Harker’s Journal. Third May, Bistritz. Left Munich at 8:35 p.m., on first May, arriving at Vienna early next morning…”
If I ask nicely will people reblog and put in the tags what their favorite kids movie is? Can be something you loved as a kid, or something aimed at kids that you watched as an adult and really liked. Please?
Hey if you See This can you reblog this or comment on this with a character you headcanon as aromantic, asexual, or both. It can be canon it can be founded on absolutely nothing I just need more aroace stuff on here #yay
